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Shantilal Gulabchand Muttha (born 15 August 1954) is an Indian philanthropist and the Founder of Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana and Shantilal Muttha Foundation.

A distinguished social entrepreneur committed to working in the development sector over the past three and a half decades. Rising from humble origins, he established a flourishing enterprise with the noble intent of becoming self-sufficient for pursuing his dream of contributing to social welfare. Very few of his peers have reached the pinnacle of success in a short time and changed gears the way he did from a highly reputed and successful businessman to becoming a social change agent. His deep yearning for social change began at a very young age, when he was at an orphanage cum boarding school, admitted there by his father as he had lost his mother as an infant.

EARLY LIFE:
Shantilal Gulabchand Muttha was born on 15 August 1954 to Gulabchand Muttha and Smt. Sakkarbai Muttha in a village called Dongarkhini a tiny hamlet in Beed district of Maharashtra India. He had an elder brother, Rajmal Muttha. Shantilal Muttha lived only briefly in Dongarkhini. At the age of 13 years, he was enrolled in a Jain boarding school at Kada, village which was few kilometers away from his hometown, by his father. He completed his under graduation from Sarda college in Ahmednagar and from there he came to Pune. While completing his graduation from BMCC College, Pune, he took up several odd jobs to fund his education and also sharpen his management and business skills. However, being aware that to bring about any social change in the society, requires financial resources and scalability and this awareness led him ventured into real-estate business in 1976. After almost a decade of successfully running the business, at the young age of 31, Muttha gave up his flourishing venture of real-estate to pursue his heart's calling.

PROFESSIONAL WORK:
From the 1980s to 1990s Muttha founded the Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana (BJS) in 1985, a non-political, secular, non-profit organization with a vision ‘to collectively contribute towards nation building through holistic development of the society'.

Muttha channelized his efforts majorly into three areas:


 * 1) Social Development
 * 2) Disaster Response
 * 3) School Education and Rehabilitation of children

Social Development
Muttha understood that mass marriage is a powerful tool to bring about a social change in the Jain community and its age-old practice of grand wedding ceremonies which would often put a financial burden on the family of the bride. Muttha strongly detested this custom and decided to do away with it. The initial period was not very encouraging because most people did not buy into the concept of a mass wedding.

Even his friends said it was a far-fetched and a radical idea, and would never find takers within the Marwari community. But finally, in 1986 the wheels were set in motion, when, Muttha got his niece; Sheela Muttha married in a mass wedding setup. He had laid the foundation and set an example to bring in a small change in the traditional Marwari community. Muttha is an early believer and one of the pioneers of the unconventional concept of 'mass weddings' in India. In 1988 and 1989, he arranged one of the largest mass wedding ceremonies to be conducted for about 625 couples belonging to different religions, under one roof, without compromising on their religious rites and thus promoting national integration. Throughout the 80s, Muttha initiated and organized several other cause-based events for the empowerment of girl child, eradication of the perils of social customs like dowry, female feticide, and plastic surgery camps. Eventually, these events have transitioned into a social movement.

When the 1992 Bombay riots happened, the entire country came to a standstill. Deeply disturbed by this situation, he undertook a Shanti Padayatra(Peace March) along with the various religious sects from Pune to Nagpur with a message of peace and harmony.

Disaster Response
Muttha forayed into disaster rescue, relief, and rehabilitation in the aftermath of the Latur earthquake in 1993. He established the Wagholi Educational Rehabilitation Centre (WERC), in Pune. It is a sprawling 10-acre residential cum educational campus designed especially for rehabilitating children coming from various disaster zones. WERC has been home to not only children brought from Latur-Osmanabad earthquake affected areas, but also children from the 1997 Jabalpur earthquake. During the same year, children from the tribal, malnourished belts of Melghat and Kosbad in Maharashtra were also rehabilitated along with the children from the families of suicide farmers of the Marathwada region. Muttha has been attending to their educational, nutritional, healthcare (physical as well as psycho-social) needs over the last two and a half decades.

From the 2000s to Present

Since the 1990s, Muttha has contributed to several relief operations including; Gujarat Earthquake, Tsunami, and Jammu & Kashmir earthquake. In 2013, under the leadership and guidance of Shantilal Muttha, BJS started the Maharashtra Drought-Free Movement to address the devastating effects of successive droughts in Maharashtra. In the year 2017, The Government of Maharashtra and the Paani Foundation partnered with BJS for this initiative. In March 2018, BJS started the project “Sujalam Suphalam” which stands for 'abundance of water and prosperity and by April-May 2018, BJS steered a massive movement for watershed management in collaboration with Paani Foundation in 1,500 villages, deploying 1,624 earth-moving machines (940 Excavator and 684 Backhoe Loaders) across 75 talukas in 24 districts of Maharashtra. In a record-breaking execution, the machines worked for 8.52 lakh Backhoe Loaders machine-hours, building 5,100 crore liters of water storage capacity by 22nd May 2018.

Based on the project success in Maharashtra, NITI Aayog took cognizance of the 'Sujalam Suphalam' model. The Government of Karnataka also came forward to replicate the 'Sujalam Suphalam' model in two aspirational districts: Raichur and Yadgir under the banner of 'Jal Samvardhane'. Shantilal Muttha is determined to fight drought and under his guidance, BJS will continue its work with the drought-proofing programs of the Government and other initiatives of like-minded organizations. The seminal work done by Shantilal Muttha, Founder of BJS in disaster response has been well appreciated and acknowledged by the Government authorities of various State and Central governments for relief and rescue operations.

School Education, with a focus on education quality and values education
According to Shantilal Muttha; “Education transforms lives, value education transforms society”

Realizing the immediate need for a comprehensive program on values education; in 2003, he launched an array of programs under the Educational Quality Improvement Program (EDUQIP) across government and private schools. By 2009, over 4000 government and over 500 Private schools, pan-India had successfully adopted this program.

From 2009 to 2015, Muttha took a special interest in a value education program namely, Mulyavardhan. While this platform was evolving, Muttha had envisioned to scale this model, and in 2014, Shantilal Muttha Foundation (SMF) came into existence. Currently, Mulyavardhan is being implemented in nearly 67000 primary schools covering 195000 teachers and 4400000 children across Maharashtra and Goa states. Seeing the success of this program, Mulyavardhan has now been introduced in Gujarat and by the end of the academic year,2019-20 20, the entire district of Porbandar will cover 333 schools, 2000 teachers and 47000 children.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
Shantilal Muttha’s work has won him appreciation and widespread recognition. In 1998 His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, presented Shantilal Muttha, the Diwaliben Mohanlal Mehta Award instituted by the Diwaliben Mohanlal Charitable Trust. In November 2017, He was honored with Rajiv Gandhi Manav Seva award from Hon'ble President of India.

He has been conferred upon with several Lifetime Achievement Awards from renowned organizations over the last few years. Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Raipur in collaboration with National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) felicitated BJS, the only civilian organization to be nominated, with the International Conference on Humanitarian Logistics (ICHL) 2013 Award for Excellence in Humanitarian Action. BJS has also been appreciated in the Lok Sabha for its significant work in the disaster response segment. Mr. Shantilal Muttha was recently awarded the IOJ Ahimsa Award in 2018 at the House of Commons’ London for his charity work in the field of education, social development and disaster relief in Maharashtra, India.

Reference Link:

 * 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatiya_Jain_Sanghatana
 * 2) https://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-disasters-continue-to-be-managed-poorly-by-states-says-shantilal-muttha-1499295
 * 3) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/BJS-offers-to-rehabilitate-1000-tsunami-hit-kids/articleshow/992709.cms
 * 4) https://jainsamaj.org/content.php?url=Shri_Shantilal_Muttha_-_Bharatiya
 * 5) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/Mass-marriage-advocate-practises-what-he-preaches/articleshow/522873870.cms
 * 6) https://www.slideshare.net/BJSIndia/bjs-a-photo-journey26042012
 * 7) https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-paani-foundation-to-join-hands-with-bharatiya-jain-sanghatana-for-anti-drought-campaign-2264547
 * 8) https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/aamir-khan-announces-2nd-edition-of-satyamev-jayate-water-cup-116101600586_1.html
 * 9) https://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/deccan+herald-epaper-deccan/bjp+claims+that+farmer+welfare+in+karnataka+is+their+no+1+priority-newsid-87253284
 * 10) https://www.dailypioneer.com/2018/state-editions/up-to-test-mah---s-sujalam-sufalam-scheme-in-2-dists.html
 * 11) https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/up-to-replicate-maharashtra-s-sujalam-suphalam-drought-model-in-bundelkhand-118100700315_1.html
 * 12) https://www.vatfaq.in/bjs-educational-quality-improvement-project-by-bhartiya-jain-sanghatana.html
 * 13) https://www.hindustantimes.com/karnataka/pune-on-my-mind-civil-society-must-work-with-government-to-revolutionise-school-education/story-ryAnAtkHKfbWTvgZdFqw2H.html